THREE DAYS IN JUNE by award-winning author Anne Tyler. This is my first read by the author and it was excellent, delivering a packed punch in less than 200 pages.
We meet Gail Baines and her compact family, over three days including the day of her only child’s wedding. The author gives us the wedding day, also the day before and after it. The event may seem mundane unless there’s drama, high emotions and a scandal/sensational event. However, the wedding is just an event and what we get in these three days is the highlights reel of Gail's marriage.
Years after working as a remedial Math Teacher in Baltimore Schools, presently Gail is an Assistant Headmistress at a private school. With the present headmistress’s retirement around the corner, Gail is expecting a promotion. However things go the opposite way and in an impulsive move, she has words with the headmistress and quits on the spot, leaving the school in a tiff. This is how we meet her, having a meeting with the headmistress about her future at the school. She is in her 60s and this impulsive move might seem a bit overkill initially but it is to an extent as we get to know her further in the story.
Gail is the kind of character you would not find so easily in real life, not because they are not common; it is because not many take the time or effort to look past the physical and the few words exchanged. She is socially awkward or so her employer points out, however, when I got to know her I was glad to know these personality quirks of hers. It is not a lack of skills it is having a low tolerance of general small talk and tact at times, in layman's terms she is more of a blunt person. Her actions and decisions are so unexpected, especially the drama that would’ve been in her marriage but turned into a silence. She has a habit of surprising when least expected, which is always a plus in a good novel.
This is a compact, 200-page story with a narrative spread over three days in the lives of its characters. While the stage is set for a wedding and the related ceremonies and rituals, we get a lifetime of these characters’ relationship and then some more. The writing is crisp and clear and the story delivers the lives of its main characters in a manner the reader is left with no questions. As the story progresses the reader gets to know the characters especially Gail so well that by the end of it, they have no questions but clarity about who she is. I felt like things were falling into place, pieces of a puzzle fitting right as I got to know Gail, her ex-husband Max, their daughter, and Gail’s mother too in a small cameo. I especially liked the ending.
I would like to recommend this book to you if you are looking for a quick read between heavy books; or if you’ve always been curious about this award-winning author’s writing and haven’t decided where to start. Or even if you are not a reader and want to pick up a book to see what the hype about reading is all about. Pick up a copy and experience a good book, a storytelling style you'll enjoy and have no problem grasping. Happy Reading.
A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.
Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.
But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.
Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers.
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